# Moving from uncategorised to general category
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [November 19, 2022, 9:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160 "2022-11-19T21:59:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2022, 9:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/1 "2022-11-19T21:59:26Z")
Continuing the discussion from [2.9.0.beta11: Security fixes, New general category, Sidebar improvements, and more](https://meta.discourse.org/t/2-9-0-beta11-security-fixes-new-general-category-sidebar-improvements-and-more/243627):
> [@2.9.0.beta11: Security fixes, New general category, Sidebar improvements, and more](https://meta.discourse.org/t/2-9-0-beta11-security-fixes-new-general-category-sidebar-improvements-and-more/243627/1):
>
> ### General is the default category
>
> For sites with the #General category, it will now be automatically selected when a new topic is created.
On my forum I had renamed and kept the old “Uncategorised” quasi-category (if that’s a word), and `allow uncategorized topics` is ticked.
Do I need to do anything as a consequence of the update quoted above? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2022, 10:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/2 "2022-11-19T22:56:34Z")
I don’t think so, but I would investigate creating a new real-category and using that instead. I find the quasi category confusing, especially if it’s renamed.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2022, 10:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/3 "2022-11-19T22:59:05Z")
Will do. How would I set the default category then? (If I delete the old quasi-category and no “General” category has been created automatically either?)
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/4 "2022-11-19T23:06:07Z")
Sorry. I think that is possible to do it, but for reasons I don’t understand, it’s hidden behind hidden settings.
[Default Composer Category component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/default-composer-category-component/148048) might be a way. There recent commit that added a setting, but I couldn’t make sense of it
I think you might just go on like nothing has changed.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2022, 11:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/5 "2022-11-19T23:11:12Z")
Thanks. I hope someone from the team sees this and can explain. Maybe it’s all been designed so that the best thing for existing forums is to keep the old non-category-category!
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2022, 5:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/6 "2022-11-20T05:06:32Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Sorry. I think that is possible to do it, but for reasons I don’t understand, it’s hidden behind hidden settings.
It is now visible in the admin settings. 🎉 You can find it under `default composer category`
> [@Jonathan5](#):
>
> Thanks. I hope someone from the team sees this and can explain. Maybe it’s all been designed so that the best thing for existing forums is to keep the old non-category-category!
The `#general` category change has been implemented so it affects newly created sites and leaves existing ones as they are. You can happily continue using your setup as is and don’t _need_ to do anything. 👍 (though renaming Uncategorised is a bold choice 🙂)
However, if you would like to mirror the new setup you can do this by:
- Creating a new `#general` category
- Bulk moving all topics from `#uncategorised` into `#general` (also consider temporarily toggling the `disable category edit notifications` admin setting)
- Setting the `default composer category` to `#general`
- Turning off `allow uncategorized topics`
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2022, 10:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/7 "2022-11-20T10:35:52Z")
Can he rename general?
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2022, 10:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/8 "2022-11-20T10:39:58Z")
You can rename the pre-seeded `#general` category if you have one. 👍
If you’re creating a new default category you can call it whatever you like - and if you already have an existing category that you’d like to use as a default one you can add that to `default composer category` (like we’ve done with `#support` here on Meta)
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2022, 11:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/9 "2022-11-20T11:27:12Z")
Let’s say I’ve already renamed my “uncategorised” quasi-category as “General”. What difference would there be after taking the steps above? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2022, 8:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/10 "2022-11-21T08:25:40Z")
I’m not 100% sure I’m following this question 🙂, but I think if you reverted your uncategorised back to ‘uncategorised’, following those steps would then allow you to retain a similar setup to what you have now without accidentally being caught out with any changes to the uncategorised category in future updates.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2022, 8:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/11 "2022-11-21T08:41:51Z")
I just wondered what the benefit of the new setup is over the old.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2022, 9:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/12 "2022-11-21T09:26:49Z")
I think it’s mainly a change for new sites to move away from the ‘uncategorised’ name. You were ahead of the game and made similar changes to your site manually already, so it may not seem that different from your point of view. 🙂 New sites also get a default chat channel attached to the #General category as well, which isn’t possible with uncategorised.
The main bonus I like is the new `default composer category` option. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Don](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Don)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2022, 10:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/13 "2022-11-21T10:15:47Z")
I think uncategorized category is not a _real_ category. It means, topics without category, just a topic holder until move it to a category. So there are some limitations what you can’t do with it.
For example:
- you cannot change the category security settings
- you cannot set up it as parent or sub category
- as @JammyDodger mentioned you cannot create an assigned chat channel from it
- maybe there are more difference…_(i am not sure)_
But now with the new method you can select for example your most popular and/or important category to default to make topic creation faster and more understandable. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2022, 10:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/14 "2022-11-21T10:23:06Z")
Thanks for the detailed replies. I never liked the uncategorised non-category in the first place so, now that it seems safe to do it, I will go ahead and change my forum to replicate the current position.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2022, 10:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-from-uncategorised-to-general-category/246160/15 "2022-12-21T10:23:34Z")
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